Cheney and Rumsfeld and Greenspan and the rest of the destructive monsters that have dragged us down and backward and shamed us all, always get in when when the civilized folks have cleaned up their last mess. We don't need welfare anymore because ... welfare worked and brought poverty down. We don't need the Geneva Convention any more because ... people that follow it don't torture anyone. We don't need peace because ... we've had peace. We don't need banking regulation because banks don't wreck the world economy since we've had ... banking regulation. We don't need to protect reproductive rights because while we protected them, they existed.

We don't backslide completely every time, but it happens a lot. Apparently we need to suffer as a result of terrible ideas until we remember why we had civil rights or social safety nets or peace treaties to begin with.

I imagine that when someone starts droning someone we like, we will suddenly remember that endless war and governments murdering whomever they want with no oversight and no recourse isn't okay.